Rugby, goblins and fart jokes...
Who doesn’t like watching sports these days? Going to a stadium, grabbing a beer, and cheering on your favorite team is something I believe everyone is fond of. Perhaps the most fun of it is chastising the referees and umpires for their ludicrous calls. Who are the referees to say that players can’t take blunt objects to each others heads? Luckily, developer Cyanide solved that problem last year with the release of Chaos League. It took an original idea—a rugby-style game mixed with violence and lawlessness—and brought it to PC gamers everywhere. The follow-up, Sudden Death, once again proves that even something as fun as smashing kneecaps to gain possession can be marred by repetitive gameplay.
Your line and the opposing line will meet in small groups, and pummel the hell out of each other—that’s it. Between goals, there’s 10-20 seconds of actual strategy before the whole field goes into chaos. The majority of the time you’ll be concentrating on immobilizing opposing players to get a runner or a receiver through a pocket of bodies. The focus on the ball itself seems secondary, and that’s a shame considering the fights lack any sort of substance. Opposing players will meet, then throw punches until one of them falls down. Your own players are completely devoid of any A.I. and won’t do a thing until they’re told to. When they are instructed, they do perform very well, however. The waypoint system lets you strategically run your guys around the various battles on the field and the protection system ensures that anyone handling the ball won’t get a scratch on them.
As far as your match choices, there’s some slim pickings. You’re limited to single match games, or have the option of participating in tournaments. To help new players get into the swing of things you’ll have the option of what tier you want to play on. You can start off on the lowest tier of players and not have to deal with pesky things like magic and be hindered by spells. Conversely, players who enjoyed the first game may want to just step right in to the big leagues, “spells-a-blazing” so to speak.
No matter what level of players you use, you’ll still have the same old dirty tricks at your disposal, plus a few new ones for good measure. Before the start of each match you’ll get to use some of your team’s money to buy various favors. Chiefly among those is bribing the ref. When you activate your bribe, the ref will turn away from any illicit activity that he sees. This can give you the extra time you need to maul an opponent that’s already on a ground, which could result in the knockout or possible death of a player.
Other nasty tricks include doping your players up for an extra boost, and ordering drug screens of players on the opposing team. If you’re really feeling nasty, you could order a hit on an enemy player, which has significant consequences on their aggression during a match; their star quarterback won’t be so good if he thinks he has a spiked-club aiming for his head. You’ll notice the effects on the field that these tactics have, but the overall advantage it gives you won’t be that satisfying. Not because doping your players doesn’t work, or bribing the referee doesn’t give you a real advantage, but because there isn’t much substance to the individual matches. Not even magical powers can save the gameplay.
Each player has their own “breath,” which is used to cast various spells and abilities. There are universal abilities, like sprinting and self-healing, which can help give an edge to certain characters. You can also cast magical spells, like turning opposing players into huge chunks of ice to freeze them in place, or smiting them with a bolt of lightning. There’s also crowd-activated spells, too. By telling your players to rile up the crowd, they’ll use their breath and cause the arena stands to erupt in a flurry of cheering. All this celebration and screaming fills up a magic bar which then lets you use specific spells like laying down mines, and revealing smokescreens which obscure your view of the field.
In theory, all these aspects should add a whole lot to the gameplay. Admittedly, the spells do make things interesting and you can use more men to control the ball while your magic spells deal with enemy players. For the duration of the match, though, you’re not going to get a lot for your breath. It recharges very slowly, and you’ll find yourself using a lot of it on self-healing your players so they’re not knocked out of the game.
Sudden Death does succeed in creating a dozen or so unique races, all with their own special abilities. Some may be more adept at firing up a crowd and capitalizing on the arena magic, while others are cold-blooded killers that are good at pummeling enemies into dust, and not much else. Sudden Death also features a few new races that weren’t seen in the original: The Damned, The Gnomes, and the Cigulae. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and being able to pick a team that caters to your own style of play is very helpful.
To further facilitate players, the game features three different types of play: real-time, turn-based, and active-pause modes. The differences boil down to pausing and forming strategies, and are immensely helpful to new players and veterans alike. Sometimes you’ll encounter a tough opponent and need to take a breather to issue orders to your squads effectively.
From a presentation standpoint, Sudden Death probably isn’t going to win any awards for graphics, but they do the job. The engine does look dated, with blocky characters and rather lackluster particle effects. The frame rate is steady no matter what the action, even on full zoom. The one redeeming factor here is the audio, which is an assortment of light-hearted commentary from two very twisted announcers. They’ll make you chuckle more than once if you take the time to listen to what they’re saying.
Chaos League: Sudden Death isn’t that much of a step forward from the original. The game has its rough spots, but also shines in a few areas as well. If there’s a redeeming factor to the game, it’s that it’s a bargain at £19.99, considering you get the original Chaos League too. If you like your sports games with a touch of evil and a pinch of sadism, then you’ll definitely want to check it out.